Interface files

An interface file supports separate compilation by recording the information gained by compiling M.hs in its interface file M.hi. Morally speaking, the interface file M.hi is part of the object file M.o; it's like a super symbol-table for M.o.

Interface files are kept in binary, GHC-specific format. The format of these files changes with each GHC release, but not with patch-level releases. The contents of the interface file is, however, completely independent of the back end you are using (-fviaC, -fasm, -fcmm etc).

Although interface files are kept in binary format, you can print them in human-readable form using the command:

ghc --show-iface M.hi

This textual format is not particularly designed for machine parsing. Doing so might be possible, but if you want to read GHC interface files you are almost certainly better off using the GHC API to do so. If you are wondering how some particular language feature is represented in the interface file, this command is really useful! Cross-reference its output with the Outputable instance defined in compiler/iface/LoadIface.hs

Here are some of the things stored in an interface file M.hi

The version of GHC used to compile the module, as well as the compilation way and other knick-knacks

A list of what M exports.

The types of exported functions, definition of exported types, and so on.

Details of some of the types involved in GHC's representation of Modules and Interface files can be found here.

When is an interface file loaded?

The act of loading an interface file can cause various parts of the compiler to behave differently; for instance, a type class instance will only be used if the interface file which defines it was loaded. Additionally, GHC tries to avoid loading interface files if it can avoid it, since every loaded interface file requires going to the file system and parsing the result.

The big situations when we load an interface file:

When you import it (either explicitly using an import, or implicitly, e.g. through -fimplicit-import-qualified in GHCi; loadSrcInterface)

When we need to get the type for an identifier (loadInterface in importDecl)

When it is listed as an orphan of an imported module (loadModuleInterfaces "Loading orphan modules")

We also load interface files in some more obscure situations:

When it is used as the backing implementation of a signature (loadSysInterface in tcRnSignature)

When we look up its family instances (loadSysInterface in getFamInsts)

When its information or safety (getModuleInterface in hscGetSafe)

When we an identifier is explicitly used (including a use from Template Haskell), we load the interface to check if the identifier is deprecated (loadInterfaceForName in warnIfDeprecated/loadInterfaceforName in rn_bracket)

Recompilation checking (needInterface in checkModUsage)

When we need the fixity for an identifier (loadInterfaceForName in lookupFixityRn)

When we reify a module for Template Haskell (loadInterfaceForModule in reifyModule)

When we use a wired-in type constructor, since otherwise the interface file would not be loaded because the compiler already has the type for the identifier. (Loading instances for wired-in things)

When -XParallelArrays or -fvectorise are specified for DPH (loadModule in initDs)